USTA Foundation, the national organization which brings tennis and education together to change lives, recently announced Kathleen Wu of Dallas as the next president of its board of directors.
Wu is a longtime Texas tennis volunteer, having previously served on multiple USTA boards and committees, including the board of USTA Texas and the USTA national board of directors, and as the national chair of the diversity and inclusion committee. A lawyer with 30-plus years of litigation experience, she first joined the USTA Foundation's board in 2015 and was elected vice president in 2018. Wu succeeds Thomas Chen of Short Hills, N.J., whose two-term tenure as president ended in 2020. Adopted out of the foster care system at age 5, Wu grew up near public tennis courts in Great Neck, N.Y., and it was in the New York City suburbs where her affinity for the sport began — albeit from afar. While she did not have a lengthy competitive history as a young tennis player, Wu became a self-described "devoted tennis mom" in adulthood when her son showed promising talent, and it was his commitment to the sport that led to her becoming involved in various administrative positions of the USTA. Wu is a1982 graduate of Columbia University who earned her J.D. from George Washington University in 1985, Wu is admitted to the bar in three states — California, New York and Texas — and says that her professional history has served her well in the nonprofit space, and prepared her to lead the USTA Foundation. "The USTA Foundation is a large organization with a lot of moving parts and a lot of very different constituencies, so my legal experience is a plus, of course. But equally important is my overall strategic acumen. I plan to put it all to good use in this job." In an unprecedented 2020, the USTA Foundation certainly needed to problem-solve. With National Junior Tennis and Learning (NJTL) network programming and fundraising efforts both negatively affected by COVID-19 shutdowns, the USTA Foundation family mobilized to raise over $5 million for its 'Rally to Rebuild' campaign in financial support of these youth tennis and education organizations. For more information about the new USTA Foundation Board of Directors, click here.
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